Roberta Hughes (12/1/2012 at 9:17 AM)
Interesting article, thank you for sharing. Whether LeapFrog rating system is flawed or not, it raises the awareness of patient safety and will influence where patients choose to receive care. As a healthcare image consultant, I "see" many safety and security issues. The appearance of healthcare professionals also impact patient safety. While on-site consulting with a client about their healthcare image and uniform program (or lack there of), a bomb threat occurred and 150,000 patient financial records were stolen. Hospital's relaxed uniform dress policies make it difficult to discern between patient and care provider, and between physician, nurse, or medical assistant, creating significant safety issues. While conducting an on-site image assessment, to the dismay of the hospital, we witnessed visitors enter restricted hospital areas. The appearance of the hospital and hospital staff play also play a key role in patient safety.

rn (11/30/2012 at 5:34 AM)
I communicated with LeapFrog and was impressed. I like the integrity of the people at LeapFrog. I think LeapFrog's compassionate ethics and skill comes across in the explanations and information given by Ms. Binder. The background of the people on staff at LeapFrog is superior and will give patients confidence in LeapFrog's opinions. Think about all the required patient safety defenses that UCLA doctors and administrators breach to receive an F from LeapFrog. UCLA's "F" is not about uninsured people draining the resources of a taxpayer funder hospital. An F from LeapFrog should frighten everyone into action – encouraging people to speak up and not let your family be a victim. Health care consumers' personal funds and taxpayer money should not result in preventable suffering. A score of F takes a "team effort" and bad leadership to become that bad and stay that bad. UCLA's organized pattern of patient abuse is beyond random chance and qualitatively different from negligence. LeapFrog's info. shows that the danger to patients is the quid pro quo amongst hospitals, health plans and California government that is supposed to be monitoring hospitals – especially taxpayer funded hospitals. Their tit-for-tat seems to include negligently retaining employees willing to harm patients. Other readers here may be interested in these MD's experience about UCLA. I think it will help people to understand how UCLA received an F Joseph A. Stirt, MD http://www.bookofjoe.com/2006/04/behindthemedspe_6.html www.anesthesiologyexpert.com/ Peter T Banos MD http://tryingforsense.blogspot.com/

concerned consumer (11/29/2012 at 7:04 PM)
I applaud what Leapfrog is trying to do, but what John Q. Public does not realize is that you cannot compare hospitals in the way Leapfrog is attempting. Their methodology does not take into account how sick or injured a patient is and they don't account for patients who don't follow doctors orders or who have language, cultural or socio-economic challenges. What Leapfrog doesn't tell the public is that they are a watchdog group funded by employers who want to use the scores to extort hospitals and insurance companies. As someone who lost their father because of an HCA-owned hospital's inappropriate care (that does not meet the legal definition of negligence), what I want to see is more transparency from regulatory bodies like CMS, the states and The Joint Commission. Any rating system from publicly-reported data is going to be skewed because the data is out-of-date by the time its published. Regulatory bodies are the ones who need to score hospitals and health systems, not an Angie's List type of organization like Leapfrog.